The CD/ROM in my computer busted, so I decided to try to remotely mount the CD from another computer on mine. I know the MacBook Air can do this, so I reasoned that any Mac could. It turns out it is possible, but the solution is far from obvious -- after much searching, I found the solution here.

Here's a quick synopsis. Go to System Preferences » Sharing, and enable 'DVD or CD Sharing.' (I think you need to do this on both machines -- the one with the drive and the one without the CD/ROM drive). Then, on the computer that does not have the CD drive on it, go to a Terminal window and enter:

Like others, I'm puzzled as to why the Terminal commands are needed. It seems like this has worked simply by enabling CD/DVD Sharing on both machines.

But if the commands are needed, I don't think a reboot would be required after entering them. If they were system-level items, sudo would be required to issue the commands. I bet relaunching the Finder or simply logging out and logging back in would do the trick.

I haven't tried this, and I don't have an Air; but obviously, the Air has this enabled by default.

The reason you need to enable it? Probably because Apple has decided you don't need to do this.

Maybe it's something to do with licensing codecs, but the lack of gapless playback on the older Ipods, copy/paste on the Iphone, third party Mag"safe" PSUs, and 15" Powerbooks with screens a graphic designer can use, I'd say it's the former, rather than the latter.

I can just imagine an Apple exec reading this post and screaming at the monitor "But those are our secret codes! He doesn't need to do this! He could just replace the drive!"

Same as the post I found on another blog that detailed how to resurrect my HP printer. "But! But those are our secret codes! Why couldn't he just buy a new printer!?"

The G4's remote DVD did not show up until running the Terminal commands. Sorry for questioning the hint, but I thought I had gotten it to work before simply by enabling DVD/CD Sharing on both machines.

And, as I suspected and confirmed by two posts above, a relaunch of the Finder is all that is needed to enable Remote Disc browsing in the Finder (once the Terminal commands have been entered).

Putting the Mac with the working optical drive into Firewire Target Mode also gives direct access to the optical drive.

But, can you with this hint boot from a drive on a separate computer? Or can only the Air do this? And would this work with Windows machine (with the appropriate Apple utility installed)? The Air can do this.